Lucky or Just Stupid
by Alli
Summary: The events of "Tithonus" from Peyton Ritter's point of view.


Title: Lucky or Just Stupid? (1/1) 

Author: Alli 

Email: alli@ecis.com. You should know... I've killed for feedback. 

Category: Vignette, I suppose. Also angst. 

Archive: Knock yourself out. Just tell me where it's going. 

Keywords: Don't believe in 'em. 

Rating: PG13 - a naughty word might slip in and I just wanna cover my bases. 

Spoilers: Tithonus 

Disclaimer: I don't own Mulder. I don't own Scully. I don't own Peyton, either, thank God. I mean, who'd want him? 

Summary: A look at Tithonus from Peyton Ritter's perspective. 

They say that working in the records department is a boring job. No, not just boring, they elaborate. Mind-numbing, soul-crushing, spirit-killing work. 

And they would be right. Whoever *They* are. They're right. 

But they also say that it's an easy job. Filing old Bureau junk is a job they leave for the oldest agents - the ones who are retiring in a few months (and would rather stay out of harm's way, thank you very much) and the newest agents - who they want keep out of trouble until they've matured a little. I guess I'd fall under that second category. 

But *they* are wrong. Filing isn't easy. It's dangerous, painful work. 

I mean, do you have any idea how many papercuts I've gotten in just the last week? My fingertips are all sliced up in little ribbons of dead flesh. 

And last week? I dropped a big box of *something* on my foot. I don't know what was in the box- I just know that it was damn heavy. I'm surprised I didn't break a toe or two. 

But I guess I should stop my gripping. At least *I* didn't get shot in the stomach. 

I was the bastard who shot someone else in the stomach. 

OK, two people. 

Why? 

The big guys in Washington grilled me for a long, long time on that one. What made it worse was that I answered half the questions with "I don't know, sir." 

But down here in the filing section, I've had a lot of time to think about it. A lot. 

*** 

It was noonish. I was wired. I'd gotten my warrant. I was gonna arrest Fellig and present him to the judge with a little flourish. I was going to bow while everyone applauded my exceptional skills as an investigator. I sure wasn't going to let Scully take all the credit, even if she was the senior agent, after all of her hampering the investigation and crap about how Fellig wasn't the killer. Ludicrous. I mean, if it wasn't him, then who else could it be? 

Above all, I was going to make damn sure that I did well enough on this case that there wasn't a chance in hell I'd be sent back to records. 

Which was where I'd come upon the Fellig pictures. 

Filling is annoyingly simplistic. Anyone with an elementary education and a good understanding of the English language could do it. Three days into my job as a FBI agent, I resolved to be such an incredible filer that the big wigs would transfer me out of there. I hadn't spent all that time at the Academy to waste the best years of my life reviewing the alphabet. 

I stayed after regular hours and did more work than my superiors expected me to do. I double-checked everything so as not to make any mistakes. I did such a wonderful job I started to worry that I'd get left down in Records *because* I was so good at it. 

Then one day, I was rooting though the F's. I was supposed to get together some old crime scene photographs, and I stumbled upon some of Alfred Fellig's work. I'd come upon some more of his stuff earlier, and went back to find it and put it all in one nice, neat little folder where it would be easier to find at a later date. 

Now, not that I'm sick or anything, but all those crime scene photographs intrigued me. I mean, I'd never really seen *bodies* before - not real ones, anyway, just pictures. And yes, these were just pictures, but they held something mysterious. The looks on the faces of the victims were fascinating. Like when you're driving past a bad accident, you always check it out. Even though you know you know you shouldn't, you do. It was as if these bodies weren't totally dead. As if they still held a small spark of life... 

My study of the pictures was why I noticed the discrepancies. 

In nearly every single case. 

And I started to get excited. I mean, this, *this*, was what a FBI agent did. He didn't muck around with ancient pieces of paper in a stuffy old room. He discovered cases, and he solved them, and he busted the bad guy! 

I ran to my senior agent and showed him the photos. I must have made a pretty convincing argument of it, because the next thing I knew I was being told that they'd already lined up a partner for me in D.C. 

But that's how things work in the FBI, or so I'm told. If you stumble upon a case, however blindly or unintentionally, it's yours. I thought that was an *extremely* satisfactory arrangement. 

Until I found out who that partner was... 

But I'm digressing. It's not like I don't have time enough to digress, but I'd rather get this all of my chest now. 

Anyway. Where was I? Oh, right. Fellig's apartment. 

I knocked on the door but there was no answer. Pressing my ear to the cool wood, I heard voices, one of which was distinctly feminine. I recognized it as Scully's ... and why wouldn't I, after our little argument earlier? 

Even to this day I don't know why Dana - whoops, *Scully* - stood up so adamantly for Fellig. I mean, even Mulder admitted that the guy was a killer. A killer in the 1920s, but a killer nonetheless. And what I said - about not caring if Fellig was the murderer in this particular case - was true. We had the guy saying that Fellig had killed the kid in the ally, we had fingerprints ... logically, we had everything we needed to arrest the guy. I mean, we're FBI agents, right? Not the judge and jury. Really, we don't decide if someone is innocent or guilty. We look for a likely suspect - which Fellig was - and we arrest him. 

Well, we try to arrest him. I guess I didn't do such a bang-up job. 

Hearing Scully's voice made me even more keyed up than I had already been, if you can imagine that. Mulder's warnings of Fellig's criminal past and possible danger lying in wait gave me the strength and courage that I needed to give that front door a solid jar with my shoulder. 

Wow, it hurt. Even more than dropping that box on my toes. But, thanks to adrenaline, I was unfazed, and, gun drawn, raced inside. I hurried past the scanner sputtering static and turned a corner. 

A dark, heavy cloth barrier confronted me. I no longer heard voices from within. I did hear murmurings from outside, however: my backup. 

Forget backup. Fellig was my suspect, and I was going to arrest him. 

I stood to the side and brushed back the edge of the cloth. I waited a second, than stepped in front, the arm that held my weapon tensed and ready. 

It was dark behind the cloth; only a vague orangish light lighted the area. I saw a shape, a male shape, but in the duskiness I didn't see Scully. 

All I saw was something in Fellig's hand, something that was compact and that glinted silvery in the dull glow, something that was pointed at me. 

My thoughts moved light-speed through my mind. I didn't know it was possible to think so many things at one time. 

I was right. 

Scully was wrong. 

Hey, Mulder was right, too. 

He must have killed Scully. 

He's going to kill me, too. 

Gosh, I miss that quiet, boring, monotonous filing job. 

Though I'd never shot a thing except a little target, it was instinctual that I should raise that Sig and shoot Fellig. So I gave into instinct. I did. I shot him. 

If I'd been playing darts, I would've gotten a bull's eye. BAM! Right through the ... 

The camera lens? 

Oh, shit... 

Lucky me, my eyes were finally adjusting to the dim light, and I could see how the small round lens of Fellig's camera was shattered. I could see Fellig's face crumple. I could see him totter, and then drop to the ground, to my left, and lie there, still. 

And then I could see something else. I could see Agent Scully. 

She'd been behind Fellig, and my stunned mind didn't comprehend the full meaning of that. Scully was leaning, her back up against the wall, and she had this shocked expression on her face. No, shocked doesn't really describe it. She looked bewildered, aghast, as though someone had just told her that ... 

Oh, crap. I'm terrible at these metaphors. She just looked shocked. That's the only way I can put it. 

I took a step forward. I fully intended to ask what was wrong, why she was staring at me like that with such glassy eyes and ... 

And that's when I noticed something. A small, dark red spot on the lower part of her blouse. 

My conscious mind didn't understand for about three seconds. But my brain - my actual gray matter - *did* understand, and I think my heart skipped a half-dozen beats. 

Then those three second passed, and Scully's legs seemed to give way. Head lolling, she slowly slid down the wall - 

- Leaving behind a bright red smear against the white wall. 

I wanted to scream. 

Ignoring Fellig, I threw myself in front of the downed agent, my hand going to the red spot on her shirt. What was I hoping? That it was just a stain on her blouse? That it was a superficial wound? I don't know; my brain certainly wasn't working right just then. But let me tell you: no superficial wound bleeds like that bullet wound bled. And bled. And bled. 

I put my hand over the injury, as though to staunch the flow, but it was impossible, and I only succeeded in getting Scully's blood all over my hands. Now *there's* a metaphor I was not pleased with in the least. 

I put my hand to her neck, to try to feel for a pulse. My hand was shaking so badly I wouldn't have been able to feel it if my hand had been bitten off, and now the blood was all over her throat. I swallowed, resisting the insane thought that if I cleaned off all the blood, no one would be able to tell that I'd shot her. Like kids who spill something on the carpet and then try to cover it up under a rug. 

Scully's life must have been flashing before her eyes. So was mine, but in a different, selfish way. I saw myself on trial for the murder of a fellow agent, (hell, my *partner*!) standing up there before the court, saying again and again: It was an accident! It was an accident! I saw my parents, shaking their heads and saying to the news people "I never knew he had it in him." I saw the prime years of my life slipping away behind bars because I had an itchy trigger finger. I saw a good number of people waiting for me to get out from behind the safety of those bars so they could *get me* and exact their revenge ... 

I muttered something to her about getting help. Of course, she didn't respond, just sat there, her eyes - glassy, fish-like - directed to some point in midair that I couldn't see. I grimaced as I got blood all over my cell phone, hurriedly checked her pulse again - there! I'd felt something! - smearing more bright red over her skin in the process. 

And then, finally, I remembered my backup. 

I yelled something to the effect of "I need help in here!" and, shamefully, left Agent Scully's side. I emphatically *did not* want to be there if - when? - she ... passed away. I didn't want to have that image haunting me for the rest of my life. 

I jumped up, pushed back that heavy cloth, and ran back out into Fellig's living room. It was bright, so bright, and I almost ran into two navy-uniformed paramedics coming in through the door, with some cops following close behind. "What happened?" asked one with an anxious, pinched expression. "We heard a gunshot." 

I gestured futilely; I felt like I was playing a sadistic game of charades. "Two people ... we've got an agent down," I was finally able to sputter. The cops and medics pushed past me, and I was left alone in the room. The scanner sputtered to life. I heard words come from it at the same time that the cop there in the apartment with me spoke them. 

"We've got two gunshot victims here..." 

I stood frozen in the middle of that cluttered, dingy room - a man's home - for what seemed like years. The police pulled back the cloth enclosing the back of the apartment into a darkroom, and I could hear the medics talking. I didn't listen to what they were saying - I didn't want to hear what they were saying - but somehow, between the stuttering of the scanner and the roar of the blood in my ears, I picked up one important piece of information: one of the victims hadn't made it. 

*** 

Somehow, between doctors and nurses and Scully's partner going in and out of her room, I was able to sneak in to see her. 

I most certainly did not want to have a run-in with Fox Mulder. Though I'd met him only that one time, his reputation, as I'd told Scully, did precede him. I mean, who knew what kinds of alien death rays he'd picked up through the years! 

I'm kidding. I swear I am. 

But Mulder didn't just have a reputation for being an oddball - he also had a reputation for being *extremely* protective of his partner- his friend. Probably because he didn't have many. 

OK, that was cruel. 

Flowers in one sweaty hand, I balled the other into a fist and knocked lightly on the door, peeking through the window. 

She must have caught my face through the blinds, because she immediately bit her lip, looked down at her blanketed lap, and clasped her hands there before summoning me with a slight "Come in". 

I turned the knob, stepped inside, closed the door behind me, set the flowers in their vase on a table - next to a much-more expensive looking one, probably from Mulder - all without looking at Scully, then slowly met her gaze. 

"I'm so sorry-" I started. 

She interrupted me. "It's alright. I know it was an accident." 

I stared at her. She couldn't have known how those words made me feel. Liberated. Free. Innocent even. But I wasn't innocent. 

"Fellig died." 

Something in her face seemed to snap shut into a blank mask, and trying to read an emotion in those eyes was like trying to navigate a ship through fog. You never knew when there was going to be an iceberg, or a waterfall, or a storm, or even a break in the clouds. I wondered how Mulder'd managed to work with her all these years, how he could spend so much time with someone who seemed so apt at simply shutting off all sentiment. 

One thing was for certain: she was nice enough, and she was smart and beautiful and quick-- but I never wanted to see her again. I never wanted to look back on this ... this mockery of a case. 

"It's been nice working with you," I said finally. 

She looked up at me for an instant, but stayed silent. 

Shoulders slumped, I turned and exited the room. 

Guess who was waiting for me? 

Mulder seemed about a head taller than me just then, glaring down on me like some omnipotent god, with a band of light from Scully's room falling across his hazel eyes. His eyes unsettled me; they were piercing and maybe even a little crazy. I swallowed, ready for the verbal or perhaps physical barrage, but all that came was a single sentence, spoken calmly and even quietly. 

"You're a lucky man." 

I looked away, thinking about that one. Yeah, lucky. I nodded. That had to be it. 

And without a response to that obvious threat - or was it so obvious? - I slipped away, walking around the corner and then peeking back, watching as Mulder entered Scully's room. 

They deserved each other, I thought, not meanly but perhaps unjustifiably, considering how little I knew both of them. There were just some things that shouldn't be split up: yin and yang, black and white, coffee and creamer, Mulder and Scully. 

Even I could see that. 

*** 

Leafing through a bunch of police reports in a thick green binder, I slice open the pad of my thumb. "Ouch!" I hiss. Although I try to be quiet, two agents, just transferred from Salt Lake City, eye me and snicker. I've only been in the FBI a few months longer than they have, but I feel so much older, wiser. 

Well, maybe not wiser. Maybe stupider. 

Filing old Bureau junk is a job they leave for the very old, the very new, and the very screwed up. 

I suppose I'm lucky - lucky: there's that word again - that I wasn't totally tossed out on the streets. I have Scully to thank for that, though. She went to the Director and made him believe that it had been a complete accident, that I hadn't been able to see right, that I was new, that I was jumpy... 

Perhaps with a partner like Mulder, she isn't much respected by her peers, but thanks to her seniority and her self-confidence, people listen when she speaks. Lucky me, especially considering how Kersh didn't say a single word in my defense. 

In the end, the director simply said that 'perhaps I wasn't the right material for a field agent at this time' and that 'both Agent Scully and I would return to our previous assignments'. 

I know what you're thinking: I got off incredibly, insanely easy. Even though it was an accident, I injured a fellow agent and killed an unarmed man, a man who was never tried, much less convicted, for murder of any kind. I was simply sent back to my previous position. 

Well, you see, that's not quite true. 

I used to work in the New York Field Office. 

Now, I work in the D.C. Office archives. The D.C. Office, where Mulder and his crazy eyes could happen upon me at any time. Scully may be all right now, but the fact remains that I shot her, and I firmly believe that while she might forgive me for that, he never will. 

Am I lucky? 

I suppose that all depends on your definition of the word. 

End. 

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